a life threatening mass hunger strike in the guantanamo detention camp continues but prison officials still deny the threat claiming only fourteen inmates are refusing food. this is in zone defense washington dropping a key part of its european missile system citing a lack of money and development problems the pentagon opting to put more missile interceptors along the u.s. west coast instead. of back to earth after one hundred forty two days in orbit a u.s. astronaut two russian cosmonauts touched down in kazakhstan having completed their latest mission aboard the international space station. noon in moscow. good to have you with us here on r t our top story the health of

detainees at the guantanamo bay detention center under serious threat with a mass hunger strike continuing for more than five weeks it's claimed more than one hundred inmates the majority of them jailed without charge or are refusing food in an act of defiance struggling to draw attention to their plight kept officials though say any talk of this being a mass strike is a gross exaggeration upon a request for information prison spokesman captain robert duran responded that the number of detainees refusing all food is fourteen today risen from six it's the first time the guantanamo officials have admitted the number of hunger strikers has more than doubled following weeks of denial one of the inmates lawyers part is cabaret says the authorities though are using questionable definitions to play down the scale of the fast. how they are defining hunger strikers that is also one clear i think that went on a mo is being very careful in the way that they're they're denying these claims they're saying the number of men who have refused all food the number of men who

are being to. these kinds of things there is a question about exactly how the authorities are defining hunger strikers and determining when when they need to be to that our understanding is that based on previous standards the determination of who is a hunger striker is a discretionary determination that kuantan a moment makes if the definition of hunger striker is entirely in their control and it is a matter of their discretion that that explains how they are able to say that there are no more than a handful of men on hunger strike the military of guantanamo bay argues the hunger strikers are only refusing regular meals while snacking from pantries but the lawyers who have been there to visit them would say they were shocked by the physical state of some of their clients as artie's marina porton id tales u.s. officials and the media are used to ignoring the alarming reports coming from guantanamo. when the us joined the united nations human rights council back in two

thousand and nine president barack obama announced his intention to close the guantanamo bay detention center now as the island prison enters its twelfth year of operation one hundred sixty three you are still languishing there and over forty one hundred thirty are on a life threatening hunger strike the story has been denied by washington and essentially ignored by mainstream media now is r t first reported on tuesday lawyers for the get more prisoners say the men began their hunger strike on february sixth to protest the alleged confiscation of their personal items including letters personal photos bed sheets razors and also the alleged sacrilegious handling of the qur'an during cell searches that the center for constitutional rights says that they've received reports of detainees coughing blood losing consciousness and being hospitalized attorneys say that if this strike

enters its forty fifth day that participants can experience hearing loss and potential blindness now lawyers for the get more prisoners have sent a letter to u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel urging him to help end the mass hunger strike. in the meantime organizations like the red cross have made attempts to check in on the inmates here's what a representative told r.t. . are really the result of. defeat. so was. there needs to be a clear legal framework and a transparent. same goes for those detainees and it's to be transparent in fear to

alleviate the strain is really that emotional mental strain that this uncertainty triggers for the detainees of the one hundred sixty six detainees languishing get mo more than how eighty six to be exact have been cleared for release now this week the u.n. said that the u.s. is violating international human rights law by indefinitely holding prisoners at guantanamo without charge the human rights council is urging washington to quote bring an end to these illegal practices by either prosecuting prisoners in civilian court or releasing them morning from new york marina point r.t. . human rights activists are sounding alert over what they're calling the critical situation a good mo but there is no reaction from one of the most powerful groups amnesty international which boasts more than three million supporters in one hundred fifty countries as usa researcher rob as to why not having access to

detainees is a problem for human rights organization is something we raise with the authorities we have access you know when when there is a trial military commission trial we're allowed to go and observe the trials but we have no access to them selves and yes of course it's a problem so we have to wait until it's released and so we can speak to this of course leads to yes the reporting of. only individual detainee cases and it leads to a time lag because like i say the law is themselves not spent you know they're not there the whole time it requires declassification of information when they do get it so it's a really it's a really problematic situation but it's been problematic the whole time that the guantanamo detentions have been in operation. most of the detainees in guantanamo have been held for years without charge or trial turkish born murat current when i

was in germany was among them he was released after being found not guilty in two thousand and six but it was only after five years of detention. i have been myself to assure them different kinds of. their laws. the only reason why they brought us to guantanamo was because there's no any human rights existing over there like in prisons or us and that's mean they could. make with us what they would they like to do and. they specially tortured me to force me for signing papers and every time when i refused to be kept just touching in different kind of place they just try to really all kind of waits to break us. so. they try a psychological ways and physical torture to break the detainees and

the same way with myself. every time if you refused to do anything they torture to punish you for this i must have got tortured by electroshocks and waterboarding and stuff like that but i have seen also. kids slights nine years to if you sold kids inside the camp and of course it was for me more difficult to to watch over those kids how they get getting beaten up in front of me and it was for me really hard to get tortured myself. human rights activists around the globe campaign to shut down the detention camp at guantanamo bay but many are losing hope that it will happen on our website we're asking when do you think want automobile be closed here's what the results are so far the majority sixty percent said it would never happen sixty three percent that it won't happen since the u.s. isn't interested in doing so almost twenty percent say the prison will be shut only when the u.s. runs out of cash to fund it

a little less sixteen percent think the u.s. needs to set up a prison elsewhere in order to be able to close guantanamo only two percent think it will happen after the u.s. . wins the war on terror head over to r.t. dot com tell us what you think well stay with us here on r t lots more to come including how the u.k. is making money in the bedroom investigate just what the u.k. government has in store for brits and their bed starting on april fool's day it seems that many in social housing though find the move all that much of a job plus. space mission complete a soyuz spacecraft touching down in kazakstan bringing home two russian cosmonauts and a u.s. astronaut after nearly five months in orbit stay with us. we'll look at. technology innovation all the leads developments from around russia

we've gone to the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. a giant corporations rule today.

if you were set to downsize as european missile shield the new secretary of defense chuck hagel has announced plans to place interceptors in poland and possibly hungary have been scrubbed due to a lack of funding the defensive reshuffle is said to be in direct response to pyongyang that recent threats and a rising tensions on the korean peninsula for honest we can talk with our t's arena glue should go live well it looks like the threat coming from north korea is now considered far more dangerous by the us than the risk coming from around the indeed that's what it looks like it does look like the united states has changed its i think it a little bit while at least it does look like missile threat has been cited as the prime reason for beefing up security for beefing up missiles in their missile base in. alaska and you can see it right there there's an existing one. there's also a plan to install a radar in japan and the same time washington officials announced plans to scrape

the extent. of his bases in eastern europe which would have seen interceptors capable of destroying most of russia's nuclear missiles which has been a huge point of contention between moscow and washington for quite some time now in fact going back to march of last year been through its. image that if with the american president saying he'll have more flexibility on the issue after the elections so we could speculate this very well may be the u.s. president sticking to his promises but this doesn't mean russia now has nothing to worry about after all alaska and japan aren't exactly far from his borders and anyway there are still plans to build some facilities in eastern europe though on the smaller scale than originally planned and this is essentially what we have now with the whole situation surrounding. it in europe all right thank you very much for that update arena. shifting gears to some of our other top stories israel's

prime minister has finally managed to form a coalition ahead of saturday's deadline but at the cost of some uneasy compromise for the first time in a decade ultra-orthodox groups longtime allies of benjamin netanyahu were left out or peace paullus leader has more from tel aviv. a new coalition agreement has been signed and this follows weeks of suspicion and mistrust between the various political parties and also turbulent coalition negotiations now there are two newcomers to the israeli political scene the important point to make is that neither has a lot of political experience the first in fact does not mean he is a media personality by the name of yet you elected and he is to be the new finance minister which is a hugely important ministry for someone who has no financial background the second is a guy by the name of nothing to be bennett he represents the secular movement and he is to be appointed the minister of economy and trade his number two will also be the minister of construction and housing now the importance of this is that it is

going to make it harder for the prime minister netanyahu to freeze or stop settlement construction and as a result of but also make it more difficult for him to reach any kind of peace deal with the palestinians this is also the first time in a decade that the government is going to exclude the ultra orthodox parties not netanyahu has counted on the support of the ultra orthodox parties in the past he would have wanted them in this coalition he would have also wanted a bigger coalition and now moving forward as part of the coalition agreement the government in the next forty five days will have to present a new law on the issue of draw fitting the ultra religious to the army the new coalition partners one thing to serve in the army the ultra religious parties of course do not want to serve there are now who would also need to pass the budget in the next few months so he certainly has his hands full. another charge rattling the nerves of israel's leaders has always been a two state solution with palestine which is struggling for its right to become

a country in law or two spoke exclusively with the head of palestine mahmoud abbas click on r.t. dot com to watch the full interview as he speaks of a long fought battle for recognition and the right isn't that it could open up. also it could go way lower right now the u.s. drone. rights in pakistan violate the country's sovereignty that's a conclusion of a u.n. team taking a look at casualties of a conflict after a secret research trip got a multiple reports from locals caught in the crossfire of the attacks more on r t dot com. with syria's conflict now in its third year britain and france are pushing to open the door to directly arming the rebels the two states say they want to lift an e.q. in bargo but have warned that if it isn't they may still supply the weapons and moscow says any such attack would be in breach of international law france's president said the opposition fighters had given guarantees lethal aid wouldn't fall into the wrong hands this is syrian rebels claim hundreds of their men who'd been given weapons training organized by the u.s.

in jordan are back in syria washington's boosted its aid to the opposition but has so far restrained from directly arming it political analyst robert horan eyes believes the e.u. will eventually find a way to allow more arms to reach the war torn country. so i'm quite sure there will be some modification of the fan to lead the league loophole so that britain france can actually draw the coach and horses through it and they've already been sending weapons into syria so it's it's childish to pretend that this is a new development but they want to do it more openly and really need a few months ago franks said oh they were terribly worried about the poor refugees so they sent a hospital to it just happened to be a military hospital i'm at the time various people say that every day we go this is the door i'm now there are several different allied armies and they are training our rebels there and the idea here is you go from to now you're going to have the children from to distract the syrian government attacks it take them on two flanks

. in the next hour a port on the human cost of the syrian conflict on the scale of violence in the country with eyewitnesses sharing their stories. card. freedom like. you're ready to clean up a new story. and bring you liberty any time you salute free. i. would. like to be reduced to a. syrian diary on our t.v. . u.k.'s found a cheaper way to deal with the housing crisis as of april first it'll be either

cough up or get out as a so-called bedroom tax comes into effect our correspondent polly boyko took stock of the accommodation situation with some of the victims of the new tax. brian rider didn't ask for a two bedroom flats when he applied for emergency accommodation it was what the council gave him it was meant to be temporary and he's now live to fourteen year as it's my time off my dad my home we've done all the work and we've put the wood paneling on the wall. we in fact stopped decorating halfway through when we realize there are more i have to move because i couldn't afford it and what's the point of decorating when i want to uproot but it's more harm not all of my mind it will upset me to move on but brian who suffers from osteoporosis and can't work has little choice the government's so-called bedroom tax comes into effect from april first six hundred forty thousand social housing tenants with at least one spare

room either have to cough up the cash from their already stretched budgets move or there is friend's bedroom according to the government lets find is now officially under occupied that's because he's also got this bad dream. and as a result he's going to have to fork out fifty pounds from his housing benefit every month in order to pay for it that's money that brian needs to put towards food and heating so he's willing to downsize in order to avoid losing the money he so desperately needs that he's been told that there are no available properties i asked them for problems once was about six months ago for moving to a one bedroom every time i've been told her can't move me into one but nevertheless westminster says the twenty three billion pound housing benefit bill needs to be slashed people are being told they should move to a smaller flat but in my constituency there are fewer than

a hundred places people could move to a much fairly typical across the country as a whole if you can't move to a smaller property you can't avoid it you just have to pay the money and you're left with very very little i'm not just does seem very unfair the government is saying they won't have a tax on big mansions but they are having a bedroom tax on the poorest people in the country the department for work and pensions declined to comment on the controversial policy the impending changes of course such widespread concern that the government announced the parents of those serving in the armed forces foster carers and parents of severely disabled children will now be exempt from the changes as for the rest of the body in this situation is being blocked into a corner and until the council finds him a smaller fact brian will have to take the financial hit i haven't had any suggestions from any of them about what to do if and when they do is run out and i find it hard to do which i will do now realise it's happening it's coming closer. i

have no choice in the matter it has been getting even more stressful the closer we've got to the day because i just don't know what i'm going to do with what many are calling black april fast approaching critics say it's those with the least. but it being the hottest. china's once in a decade power shift over now with a new prime minister likud chang beginning his job and inheriting the task to world to run the world's second biggest economy immediate challenge facing a new generation of leaders is now to boost economic growth which has slowed in recent years well a report from pricewaterhouse coopers of oprah's the task is within the country's reach it predicts the shot that china will match the u.s. of the world's leading economy in two thousand and seventeen before overtaking it analysts say statistics if you look now at this map could explain the u.s. current intense flexing of its military muscles in china's region u.s.

efforts to gain a stronger foothold in asia and the struggle for regional influence has put beijing on edge recently that's why rapid growth in the country's military spending is placed among the top priorities of the new leadership correspondent town way reporting for r t says the u.s. moves are doing little to ensure mutual respect and dialogue between the two. there used to be a superstitious belief almost in china about eight percent growth rate of the national g.d.p. over that number has been slowed down to about seven point five percent it has to be a slow down number because china is doing this transition from a growth quantity to a growth in quality many argue it is extremely important to do reform reform really has been the key word for the new generation of leaders coming into power recently . who is the now the cut chinese premier he's been talking about reform is the largest ever that china can be enjoyed for its course for the progress by its president mr xi jinping after being elected was calling immediately to all

president obama and he advocated it to two countries could have mutual respect and openness to one another things can be better and he's been talking about a new kinds of relations between new powers and that of course the definition is not being given by the chinese side however it seems that the u.s. has already got its own definition for example people to asia or rebalancing and as a result there has been increasing number of turturro disputes or disputes in other stores between china and some of the asian neighbors was the coming in the united states might be a backup for them in the region but the china seems always want to have a peaceful neighborhood seems to be a really believes the chinese have been holding over the history so it would not some other stories making headlines across the globe ten days after his death the body of late venezuelan leader hugo chavez has been laid to rest at the site of his failed one thousand nine hundred two two bombing the leader was recently ruled out

by russian experts thousands but of the streets for one last march in honor of the president the fourteen years the procession was headed by nicolas maduro interim president and candidate next month's elections. the vatican has already come under fire for its choice of a new pope francis and his links to arjun. as dirty war former cardinal jorge mario bergoglio failed to openly confront the decade of dictatorship in his country during which approximately twenty two thousand people disappeared it's not the first time the vatican selected a religious leader with a cloudy past his german predecessor benedict the sixteenth had been a member of the hitler youth during the second world war. major anti-government rallies been held in the eastern siberia be in town of despite a warning from the country's rulers that they would firmly deal with any dissent demonstrators called for the release of political prisoners and condemned the government's crackdown on protests saudi arabia has seen a string of rallies since the start of the arab spring most of which were held in

the country's oil rich east. a soyuz spacecraft has successfully landed in kazakstan bringing to earth two russian cosmonauts and a u.s. astronaut who spent nearly five months of duty aboard the international space station archies tom barton has more. kevin ford oh leg novitsky and yes guinea terril kin are back safely on earth after their five months stint up on the international space station on the video screen here at mission control in moscow you can see them being fished out of their soyuz capsule and kept warm after that rough descent through earth's atmosphere and down on to the step in kazakstan their return to earth delayed by a day because of bad weather they're casual came in today over the caspian and black seas without a hitch to be met by recovery teams on the step in kazakhstan for the first time ever those teams including three women helping to fish them out of their capsule

and get them on the road to a climatized back to the atmosphere here on earth whilst on the international space station they help the crew up there conduct maintenance on the orbiting platform and also research much of that research focusing on the affects of microgravity both on the human body and on various engineering substances the next manned mission up to the international space station in a couple of weeks time will attempt something novel for a manned mission that is to rapidly and drastically cut the time it takes for those three crewmembers to get up to the space station from the current two days down to just six hours and that mission will carry the next three crewmembers up for their term orbiting earth. after the break we continue our look at the syrian conflict bringing you the personal experiences and recollections of journalist who spent seven months in a war torn city. a

u.n. investigator ben emmerson has decided to not let the sins of the recent past go he's demanding that the u.s. government release documents about the cia's program for addition and secret detention of suspected terrorists everson believes that there is now credible evidence that shows that cia black sites were used to extradite suspected terrorists with neither charges nor access to a lawyer you know nothing says protect a democracy like snagging people in foreign countries without even charging them with a crime this huge investigator may have good intentions but the thing is that no matter how much he and his u.n. pals urge the u.s. to prosecute officials connected with torture or expose classified information they really have no power to do anything if you haven't noticed the un is very happy to

section and punish certain countries bernie if you out there naive enough to think that they'll sanction the usa or send a peacekeeping mission to stop the human rights violators in washington not a chance the un really has no business meddling in the affairs of sovereign countries but they do it all the time but there is a zero percent chance that the un will stand up to the bad behavior from the us government no matter how much its investigators whine and plead and beg but that's just my opinion. these are decent faces of freedom fighters. and.

they're ready to clean up a new story. and bring you liberty anytime. salute play free float. up front. like to be treated this way the. syrian diary on our t.v. . more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are today.